Slavers of Antar

By DocPaul

***************************************************************

Chapter Eleven: The Paradox

“The Half Wise, Recognizing the Comparative Unreality of the Universe, Imagine that they may Defy Its Laws…Such are Vain and Presumptuous fools, As they are broken against the Rocks and torn asunder by Reason of their Folly.

The Truly Wise, Knowing the Nature of the Universe, use Laws against Laws; The Higher against the Lower; And by the Art of (Mental) Alchemy Transmute that which is Undesirable into that which is Worthy, and thus, Triumph.

Mastery consists not in Abnormal Dreams, Visions and Fantastic Imaginings of Livings, but in using the Higher Forces against the Lower, Escaping the Pains of the Lower Planes by Vibrating on the Higher.

Transmutation not Presumptuous Denial is the Weapon of the Master.

Clarity. Darkness. Distress. Despair. The voices. Too loud. Too loud!

Liam rolled over and was violently ill. A hand moved at the back of his neck, holding him firmly. He felt something silky and cool move over his skin as the sweat was wiped away and the nausea abated.

"Mom?"

"It's okay. Rest. I've got you." Liam frowned. The voice was strange. Young. Not as young as him.  Julia? It didn't sound like her or Liz.

"Who are you?"

Liam slowly opened his eyes, the sclera red and burning. The vision became clear as it slowly piecemealed into a form. Oceans. Wild and deep, turquoise grandeur of the warmest blue, her eyes watched him.

"The dead. I am the dead."

~~~

Max rushed along the bay, ignoring all who would stop him. Pushing a worker aside, he searched along the fighter craft. There. It would've been impossible to miss him. Sean was loading a long-range reconnaissance fighter with armor, weaponry, and other objects he couldn't imagine.

"Sean."

"Don't Sean me! Don't stop me, Max."

Max stood firm, his feet evenly paced with his hand held loosely at his side. He looked relaxed, but he was not. The distribution of his body weight rested on the balls of his feet. His hands hung unhindered by fastenings and obstruction to quickly counter an attack. The scar of his face was ominous and dark increasing the stoic shadows of his face.

"I can't let you go." Max said quietly. His voice was low, but it held the strength of his command. Men, they followed him not because of who he was, but for what he was, a leader—a man with a commanding presence. There was an unbreakable trust about Max.

"They took them. Both of them." Sean rested his head against the fighter craft.

"Jonesy is almost dead, burned. My Immaculate, taken. How am I to tell Jonesy that when he comes out of regeneration?" Sean breathed harshly through his mouth. Closing his eyes for a moment, he wiped his dirty face on the sleeve of his clothing. "They took her! God, Julia…" Sean looked at Max under his arm. "What would you have me do? What would you do?"

Isabel? If they had taken Isabel, as they took Julia? He would do the same.

"My life, my allegiance, Max, and all that I am, I give you freely, but not this! Not this.” Max nodded at his friend’s unusual seriousness.

He had gotten the call that his Chief Engineer was seen walking through the decks of the ship heavily armed. It didn’t take much to realize that he was heading into trouble. Looking at Sean, it was more than a little apparent that the man was too far gone. Trouble was his middle name. Trouble for those who stood in his way.

“So you finally caught it, huh?”

Sean hated Max at that moment. Damn him and his enigmatical quiet ways. Michael would’ve offered to go with Sean. Guard his back. Max quietly reasoned and spoke in half sentences.

Reading Sean’s mind, Max smiled something short of scary and sinister. “Oh, I’d go with you, Sean. Make no mistake. I’ve no problem letting you seek and destroy these bastards.” Max jumped up on the ship to stand next to his best friend. “The trick is finding them first. I swear Sean, we’ll get them back. All of them. Liz, Julia, and Liam, and the others. You’re not alone here. Kyle is just as wrecked and furious.”

Sean had forgotten Kyle. His boy. His young son, taken.

“Where is Kyle?”

Max’s smiled broadened into something ominous and almost sick. “Where you should be if you weren’t going off half cocked.” Sean raised a brow. “Questioning the prisoners.”

Sean’s face cleared and then his eyes flashed. Oh yeah. There was the ticket. Tossing another implosion grenade into the fighter, Sean jumped down. The fighter could wait until he interrogated the prisoners. “What you waiting for? Kyle is going to have all the fun!” Sean cracked his knuckles. Oh yeah, he would make them talk, and then he would go get his people.

Max laughed and joined Sean. As they were leaving the flight deck, Max asked, “So how were you going to get through the closed bay doors? I ordered them sealed.”

Sean smiled, the dimple on his cheek deepening in humor. “I armed photon detonating rounds. I was going to blow the hatch away.”

Max stopped and stared at his insane friend. “Crazy bastard!” Max looked around. “Deck Officer!” His bellow was loud and authoritive as the Flight Commander quickly came to his assistance. Max pointed at the fighter Sean was planning on commandeering. “Disarm that craft, and executive orders,” Max pointedly looked at Sean, “should the Chief here try to take another without my expressed clearance you and your men are ordered to shoot him.” Max smiled nastily. “Aim for his dick.”

“Bastard,” Sean said morosely huffing his disdain. Max was one mean man.

“Suck it up. Let’s go torture some Slavers. We seem to have two varieties in the house.”

“The more to eat,” said Sean. Looking at his friend, Sean frowned. “What did you mean that I finally caught it?”

“The love bug.”

Stopping dead in his tracks, Sean’s face was a display of disbelief. “This is it? I threw up three times this morning. Last time that happened was when Michael cooked that gelta fish from Zitar. I almost puked out a lung.”

Max grimaced. “Thanks for the description.”

Sean scratched his head. “I’m miserable. Upset. Can’t eat. I want to kill things. Kill her for getting taken, and kiss the crap out of her the same time. I can’t decide whether to beat her or fuck her to death. Either or.” Sean wiped his face. “This is the miserable bug?”

“That’s it. Either that, or you’re a colicky baby.” Max looked Sean over critically. That colicky baby thing might not be too far gone. The man was a wreck. His hair was a wild disarray of curls and he was unshaved. There was an edginess—a touch of meanness to his face. Oh, he would definitely get the prisoners to talk.

“I’m miserable!” Sean said happily. “I’ve caught the disease.” Sighing in relief, his mood lightened. “Let’s celebrate. Let’s go beat up on some creeps.”

“Yep, that’s the bug.” Max said all knowingly. Being in love made him want to beat up on things too. The body wasn’t meant to withstand that much misery and promised happiness. It was unnatural. Sick.

Sean hit Max hard on the shoulders making him skip a step. “You know, I’m not forgetting that I was the last to get the blight. This shit keeps happening to me.” Sean’s voice rose in a nice plaintive whine. “Sure, you and Michael get the bug first, you get to mate outside the species, you get married, make babies, and dammit, Michael rushes off like the big fat greedy pig he is, and steals the Princess.” Sean made a face. “Next life, Sean gets everything first. I’m sick of being last.”

“Sure you are, but you do it so well.” Coward. Max snickered. Always sending him and Michael in first to check the waters, and then bitching about it.

~~~

“Should we split up?”

Michael looked around sipping on his drink. Hell, the place was a scull pit. The very dredges of humanity were there, urinating on the floor. Good times. “You behave?”

“Back at you, you big old meanie.” Maria dipped in a curtsy and took off, circling through the crowds, her eyes never losing her mate. She found the proprietor and talked in a long discussion, nodding at Michael, she quickly ducked inside. Michael leaned into a wall, resting with his foot planted firm, his eyes never leaving the door that Maria had disappeared through.

Maria was gone for almost half an hour before she emerged. Making her way to the bar, Michael moved in a semi-circle mimicking her movement towards a common focal point. Maria tossed back a drink, and was ready to start a second before Michael joined her.

“He wanted me to strip! And do a damn lap dance for the information! Me! A stripper!” Maria tossed the next drink.

“So did you get it?” Michael asked.

Maria’s eyes narrowed in anger at him, but quickly cleared. Punching him in the stomach, she walked around him moving to the door. “Yeah. Piece-o-cake,” she said nonchalantly.

Michael smiled. “That’s my girl.” He followed her out of the bar. “So really, how did you get the information?”

Maria kept striding, purposely ignoring him.

Michael frowned his eyes narrowing. “Maria?” She kept walking, and he sped up to keep up with her pace. “Maria? Maria, how did you get the information?”

~~~

Durban . Another seedy bar in a wasteland of seedy retreats on the refuge world of Praximus. Maria moved through the throngs of dancers, bodies moving naturally to the beat. Michael had a harder time. People were in his way. He gave them a chilling stare and mysteriously a path was opened for him.

“Hello!”

Maria looked around the large man and his wall of leather. “Goodbye.”

She quelled a feeling of nausea. She wasn’t going to be sick. Not here. Not now. She had thrown up before they left their rooms. Michael had still been languishing in bed. Sex always made him that way. Loose of limb, and happy to sprawl about without a care. Maria smiled, but the movement of the man in front of her brought her back from her own musing.

“Don’t be so hasty, darling.”

“Darling?” Maria snorted. “Scram, I’m looking for a man.”

“Maybe I am he?”

Maria refocused her view to look at the man completely. “I doubt it.” The Pirate smiled. Moving closer to the Princess, he found himself suddenly a good foot back.

“I wouldn’t recommend touching my wife,” Michael snarled, his voice cold and menacing.

The man smiled. Bonus. The mate. “I take it that I would find myself in a fight with an Attilaan. You’re an Attilaan, correct?” The Pirate feigned ignorance. The Universe was well versed in not interfering between Attilaan mates.

“Correct, but you got it wrong. I’m not your problem, mate. She is.” Michael nodded to his wife. “She’d toss you like nothing, and forget to sweat.”

“I sweat!”

Michael snorted. She tossed his ass around the gym often enough, effortlessly, even after all these years. It took him a while to understand that poikilothermic species don’t sweat as a way of cooling their bodies. Her cool refreshed body looking hardly breathless after a long sparring match used to offend him. Now he understood her nature. She appeared undaunted, but her heart was usually racing. There were only a few things that made Maria really sweat. Sickness. Fear. Strenuous sex, which Kyle told him that was a reaction to hyped up adrenaline, more adrenaline than what she produced tossing his ass around a gym. Michael smiled slightly. He loved getting her sweaty.

Michael’s eyes narrowed and darkened. He would not tolerate another wanting to engage in the same exercise. His body tightened as outrage flooded his body at the thought of the other man touching his mate. Maria put a hand on his stomach holding him back with ease.

“I do too! I remember quite a few times that I sweated.” Maria’s voice went husky drawing Michael attention from his competitor to his wife. No competition. She was staring at him, and the look in her eyes made him forget the last four hours they spent rolling around in their bed definitely hot and sweaty. He was ready to go again. Her hand moved along his stomach up his side to grasp his waist hard. So evidently was Maria.

Michael laughed, but quickly turned his attention back to the man who tried to pick up his wife. “You still here?” he sneered.

The Pirate gave a quickly wry smile and moved away quickly.

“Michael.” Maria said with some urgency.

“I saw it. Let’s go.” They followed the man through the crowds. There was no problem getting through. Michael had a look of determination on his face serious enough to move stone.

“There. He went into that establishment.”

Michael followed Maria’s pointing finger. Michael looked at Maria. “He’ll be in there a while.” It was a whorehouse. He recognized it well from his pre-Maria days, and if he wasn’t mistaken, Sean was still a golden member. Michael parked them into a nice place to observe. “We should clear out our room, repack Zephyr if we need to go. You go and do it while I stay.”

“Split up?”

Michael nodded. If this Pirate took off he didn’t want to lose him. “This once.”

Maria smiled. Kissing him quickly, she melded into the night. Michael quieted an unsettling feeling as she left, gulping hard. His body hurt. Sore. Not just from sex. Sore from being held tight and on guard.

Follow the serpent.

The Pirate had the tattoo upon his arm. Follow him.

Michael watched in the dark waiting for Maria to reappear. Frowning, he tried to understand what was wrong with him. Disquiet. Off kilter? His body felt strange to him. Sitting back in the dark, he let his mind roam over himself, his feelings, and all places he usually kept under a tight control. It took a while, but he knew.

He couldn’t feel the rage in his ears, the fire in his eyes. His heart was no longer racing out of control, and his body weak with nausea. The headache was gone, and his hands felt steady. For so long, his entire body had been ravaged by his mating cycle that it had become the new ‘normal’ mode. Now it was gone. He felt—himself.

His eyes gleamed in the night. Breezes swept. Taste of cold on the edge of dew. The stillness broken by sudden noise or movement. His head cocked to the side as he listened to the sounds, his body trained for this. Stalking. The hunter. He settled in the deathwatch of his prey.

Michael felt it—the Balanced. For the first time in a long time he wasn’t struggling to stand upright. That could only mean one thing.

Maria was pregnant.

~~~

“Is he still in there?” Maria asked as she moved next to him. He hadn’t felt her presence until she was there. He was distracted. Confused. Hell. He didn’t know what he was. So he grunted.

Maria passed him a hot drink. “Thought you might be getting cold.” Moving closer, she moved into her usual position against him, snuggling in close.

“Are you cold?” Michael asked. His voice sound husky and dry to his ears.

“A little, but not anymore.” Maria moved into his jacket up against his warmer body. Michael looked down at her slighter body.

“You’re not drinking anything?”

Maria shook her head. “No. My stomach is upset.” She didn’t want to disgrace herself by tossing up her stomach. She had eaten some dry crackers. Looking up at her husband she looked at him uncertain. “What?”

Michael opened his mouth, but quickly closed it. He looked over at the building and then at her again. Shit. How was he going to tell her? She was going to freak, and he couldn’t afford that to happen right now. His eyes moving over her face. It was thin. Thinner than usual. A part of him recalled her being slightly off her food lately, and maybe a little paler. He was so busy keeping himself upright, he missed the signs.

Birth control had failed. Maria would never go off of it  without telling him first. Since she came to understand what was eating at him, that his mating cycle had kicked into high gear, they had been more than a little active. Not even trying to quell the immense satisfaction and pride he felt at his own virility, he allowed it to sweep over him in a smug feeling of being complete. Michael had spent the last half an hour trying to come up with a way to break the news to her without her melting down into a neurotic puddle. He had to tell her. She couldn’t keep taking the birth control while pregnant. It could be harmful to their baby.

Their baby. His heart seemed to stop in his throat. A hardened lump. He couldn’t say what he felt, but one thing was certain, he wasn’t upset.

“Michael?”

He shook his head at her concerned look. His eyes never leaving her face. “You’re so damn beautiful.”

Maria smiled at his matter of fact voice, as if he were stating an obvious, and something so amazing to him at the same time. Before she could ask him anymore questions, she noticed movement at the establishment’s door.

“Maria...” He had to tell her.

“He is moving! There’s our mark.” Maria was off him and fastening her jacket from where she opened it so her body could touch his.

Michael cursed the interruption, but quickly followed her. The Pirate was in the same landing module as the Zephyr. They kept up with him easily moving swiftly and soundlessly. The man stopped and was talking to the Commander of Operations as Michael rested his hand on Maria’s back, bend down he whispered instructions to her, as she nodded and moved off.

Michael moved closer to the Pirate’s craft. Discretely he planted a tracking devise. Moving away, he waited until the man came back and prepared to take off.

Maria was waiting. She had the Zephyr ready to go, and was positioned in the back co-pilot seat. Michael was amazed. He expected her to take control of her ship. Maria shrugged.

“Attilaan on the hunt. I expected you would need to pilot.” Michael looked at her sharply.

Maybe that was her mystique? She had an insight into people, a way of seeing hidden places, and there was a touch of sympathy about her in all things. Maria saw into parts of him no one knew existed, not even Max. With Maria, there was always this crisp clean line of understanding.

“Thank you.”

Maria laughed. “Thank me later! Our prey is leaving!”

~~~

Darius of Antar quickly scanned his ship. Smiling, he found the tracking device. Quickly punching in navigation Intel into his console, he plotted his way home.

“Sire,” he said into the communication transceiver as he connected to his homeworld.

“Report.”

“The package is being delivered.”

~~~

“Here, you have to eat.”

Liam shook it off. His hands remained around his head as he lay curled in a ball in  fetal position.

The woman sighed, and knelt beside him, her hand soothing on his young back. “You must eat. Those who grow weak soon are killed.”

Liam nodded. He hazarded a look at the beautiful young woman. Her startling blue eyes were kind and a comfort. “My head. I hear their screams.”

“You must shield. Strengthen what you have, young Empath. It will get worse.”

Liam was afraid of that. He looked around the large room with sprawling bodies all about the place. “Who are these people?”

“Those taken, much like you and me. I was only recently taken in a raid from Geneja. Do you know Geneja?”

Liam shook his head no. “I’m of Agape.”

“I expected as much. An Empath of pure blood usually is.”

“How did you know that I am an Empath?”

“You could say in my real life, it was my job to know different species. I am a doctor.”

Liam uncoiled a bit. “My father is a doctor. A great one. A great man.” Liam looked at the guards on the door. “He will come for me, and for the others, you will see.”

“I sure he will,” she said comfortingly, but she did not believe it to be true. No one ever came.

“The others? The ones that came with me. Do you know where they are?” Liam recognized the signs of an adult struggling to decide what to say or how much to tell. “Please?”

She nodded. “Your father should be proud of such a brave son.” Leaning closer, she whispered low to prevent the guards from hearing them discussing matters. “They are being tested. Harvested.”

“Harvested? I don’t understand.”

“The females. Their reproductive eggs are being harvested. A few at a time. Our captors will artificially inseminate and then implant them back into the mother.”

Liam shook his head. “If they only want them to reproduce, then why such an elaborate way? Wouldn’t normal—um,...” Liam turned red in embarrassment.

“It would. Not for us. Not for the women. If they impregnated the normal way, it would be rape. This is a rape of a different kind. Still horrible, but not as physically violent as the other way would be. The clinical aspect is amazingly sterile, and takes the edge off the evasive procedure.” She looked at the guards. “I do not believe that these people can ‘perform’ sexual acts any longer. They are incapable of sexual reproduction, so this is merely a means.”

Liam understood. “So why did they take males?”

“Their female population needs donors.”

“Donors?”

“Sperm. I take it that these people are, or at least their male population is sterile. I believe they use others sperm as vectors, and insert the DNA into the host sperm before fertilizing a host egg.” She looked at the young boy of sixteen, and smile at her own lecture. “Sorry, I can’t resist the need to theorize.” Liam stared at her a moment, seeing much the same behavior in his own father in the past, and suddenly in a moment of weakness, he could feel a threatening need to cry. He missed his father.

Liam tried to stand when he saw two guards bringing back Julia. She was unconscious. His benefactor stood and quickly took the unconscious woman, lying her down on the ground next to Liam. She looked up at the guards in spite.

“Tell the vile one that we need more fresh water!”

The guards didn’t acknowledge her demands, but they did stand back from her a bit. Liam was next to Julia. She didn’t look hurt.

“She’ll sleep for a while. They gave her something before the harvest. When she wakes, she will be in pain from the incision region.”

“Liz, what about Liz?”

“I don’t know. Three of the people who came with you are dead. They killed them. Two were sent out with Slavers to the Flesh markets. The other, I do not know.” She put a hand on Liam’s back in comfort. “It’s all right. I’m sure your father will come. What is your name?”

Liam looked at the woman, his eyes full of tears. He quickly wiped them away. “I can feel her discomfort and pain. I can feel the horror she felt.”

“You must shield. There is much pain here. Much sorrow. Much death.”

He nodded. “I am called Liam.” He sniffed running his arm across his eyes to clear them. “My father will come.” He needed her to believe with him. “He will. He is Kyle of Agape, the main physician on Shiva, the flagship to the New Federation. He will find me!”

“I know of your father.” The woman hugged Liam close as they watched over Julia. “He is a legend from the war. I know him as a doctor as well, though I have never met him. Are you from the Shiva as well, and your friend here?”

Liam looked at Julia, and nodded. “She is Julia, one of the doctor’s from the Shiva, and Liz was an engineer.” The room suddenly became dimmer as the lights were turned down. “He will come for me.”

“Yes. I believe he will.”

Liam grasped the woman’s hand. “Please, can I know your name?”

“Ava. I am Ava.”

~~~

Kyle entered the room where Max and Sean, and a few others watched the prisoner on a monitor. He was tired. His body was in pain and his chest hurt. Mostly, he was worried and angry. Liam. His child. Someone had taken his child.

“Anything, Kyle?”

“There are eight that we recovered. As we suspected, they are of two different factions, but same race, or closely associated. I checked their basic DNA, and they are virtually the same. If they live in the same solar system, you wouldn’t be far from wrong if you guessed that they interbred for centuries.” Kyle rubbed his face. “All of them were armed with internal self destruct protocols. A hidden virus that was dormant in their adrenal glands. I suspect that given a certain circumstance, such as interrogation, some internal system activated the gland, and in turn the virus.”

“Is it deadly?”

Kyle nodded. “Absolutely. Even if one of them activated it, it would not only kill them, but sweep across Shiva killing everyone.” Kyle sat down and took a drink from his cold coffee. “I suspect they never expected an Empath. I sensed their fear, and foreboding. I take it that they were injected with the virus when they were pressed into service. They knew they were going to die. I took the opportunity to destroy the virus. A few shots of radiation did it.  Unfortunately for them, it destroyed their adrenal gland as well.”

Max’s face darkened and his jaw hardened in a clenching motion. “Tell me that you got all of it, that there is no more danger.”

“Harmless.” Kyle looked at the Thoth warrior. “This one is called a Thoth warrior. He is conscripted in the Imperial Army following their leader, Thoth. There are two of them. The others are from another faction, the Royals. They follow a group of Royalists who have been trying to regain the main planet and throne of a five planet system for well over a thousand generations. I take it that the war has turned many times. Each faction winning the prize, the throne of Antar, and then within another generation of civil war, it turns over to the other side again.”

“Thoth.” Max said. “What is it he wants from us?”

“That I can’t tell you. They are talking, but Thoth’s exact agenda isn’t known…” Kyle looked at Sean bleakly. “...yet.”

“Give them to me, Max. I’ll make them talk. I’ll make them pray for death.” Sean said in anger.

“Praying is all they have left,” said Kyle.

“Explain.” Max saw the look on Kyle’s face.

“They are at the end of their existence. I’ve never seen a species die out before. Until today.”

Sean was quiet, his brow knitted. Max wasn’t so quiet in his confusion. “I don’t—a die out?”

Kyle looked at the warrior who seemed to be staring at him. He scanned them. All of them. “They are clones. All of them. Many, many generations. That man in there is in about his one hundredth regeneration cycle. His body is failing. He has massive internal anomalies and dysfunctions. The same is true for all the others. Even the other faction, though those that call themselves the Royals are not as degraded as the Thoth warriors.  It seems they didn’t start the cloning process as early as the Imperials, but that at most gives them a few more hundred generations of cloning, then no more. Still, if I was to guess, I would say that even the added advantage isn’t really an advantage at all. Where ever they live—their bodies are showing a lack of cohesion. It is like they shifted into partial space, and resided there. The shifting is destroying what normal function they might have had.”

“Do you know what they are looking for?” Max asked.

“Yes.” Kyle sighed. “The Thoths are Khivar’s people. They are seeking to do what Khivar was trying to establish. A perfect genome. A replacement for their tired dying one.” Kyle licked his lips. “They are looking for a progenitor egg. An original. It is their hope to reestablish genetic diversity and reproduction in their societies. They haven’t sexually reproduced in over a thousand generations, and currently, they are incapable of such reproduction. This progenitor egg is their only hope to survive. If they can use this egg, and successfully inseminate it with their genetics, they can reintroduce sexual production back into their species. Even with a progenitor sperm that can impregnate females of their species, they can stop the inevitable end of their existence. They are looking for a genetic seed in direct descent from the planet Earth.”